Teal feeding right outside the hide… seems like the rise in water levels is giving them plenty to tuck into… or maybe many have just arrived and they are refuelling.  The margins of the bay are mainly covered with what I think is ragweed… if that is right its an alien invader from America… still flowering it looks like and maybe dropping seed.
I found the whole business of looking at the bulks of the bird, then the feathering patterns, like war paint on the face, then how these relate to the anatomy….. all a never ending puzzle how to depict them. The way edges of scapulae/tertials? make up the horizontal bar that splits the sides/flanks… a slit where light shouldn’t be… and then shining metallic green of the secondary speculum.. turning purple when out of direct light?
Little room left in the brain for studying the bigger picture… plenty of other ducks, wigeon, lots of gadwall and mallard… no thought for diving ducks or the gallinules…  very few waders, lapwing and a couple of green sandpipers. Herons chasing off little egrets
On the big meadow fieldfares, a few redwings and starlings.